Firearm 3D Printing General - Cody Wilson Did Absolutely Nothing Wrong

[Spaced Outside Cargo]

This thread is dead as hell, but I'll drop this here:

What recommendations do you all have for upgrading an Ender 3? I don't want to drop like $800+ dollars on something new if I can just upgrade what i have for $100-200 and significantly improve its baseline performance to at least compete with modern offerings.

1. Get a glass panel from home depot and sandwich it between the metal and plastic of the print bed.
2. PTFE bowden tube (required for hot prints so you dont gas yourself)
3. Replace the board with an SKR Mini V3.

The third one particularly fixes a lot of things wrong with the Ender 3. You could also get the 45 degree tilt modification for it so you have an infinite Y axis.
That being said, despite the Ender 3 being a fine starter printer, it will never compete with modern offerings and is better suited to filling niches like the tilt kit, a volcano nozzle, or the pellet printing kit.
There are plenty of great printers that arent Bambu. Personally I like the Sovol SV06 Plus. For $300 you can get that, an appropriately sized enclosure (Creality sells one on amazon), and an Ikea LACK table, which you only need the top part for. It has a large print volume, is sturdy, and has direct drive. You really dont need to modify it at all. I think the only thing I did to it was replace the power supply because the fan in the default one is always on and about as loud as a stock Ender 3.

Also just for convenience you can get a cheap Raspberry Pi and run Octoprint on it so you dont need to fuck with chinky microSD cards dying on you.

 

[Le b0wski]

This thread is dead as hell, but I'll drop this here:

What recommendations do you all have for upgrading an Ender 3? I don't want to drop like $800+ dollars on something new if I can just upgrade what i have for $100-200 and significantly improve its baseline performance to at least compete with modern offerings.

You can print most of the parts to upgrade it into a voron switchwire and it's a regular conversion/upgrade. But for the most part upgrading the toolhead, adding linear rails and moving the electronics external/lower enough you can shove a box/enclosure over it for better heat retention.

https://vorondesign.com/voron_switchwire

 

[Akran]

Maybe one of you guys can help me, I have been trying to dial in my support settings for no joke a month. Every setting I try it produces ugly scarring or artifacts. I do not want to use PETG for interfacing as contamination is a issue (especially for 2A prints) I am unsure if any of the other support interface material is worth it or does the same. Could one of you fine kiwisisters point me to a place that has actual info? I feel like I've tried every setting under the sun with no good results and ugly scarring triggers my autism. I switched to orca a few days ago but still the same issues.

 

[Le b0wski]

produces ugly scarring or artifacts

Is it like the nozzle is clogging or when you pull it away the bond between the support and the print is too much?

What are you using as your test print? Trying to fix errors on an actual print it's hard to tell if the issue is with the printer or the stl/model.

I've done all in one tests like this before and then find another test for a specific thing if it looks bad.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2656594

 

[Akran]

Is it like the nozzle is clogging or when you pull it away the bond between the support and the print is too much?

What are you using as your test print? Trying to fix errors on an actual print it's hard to tell if the issue is with the printer or the stl/model.

I've done all in one tests like this before and then find another test for a specific thing if it looks bad.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2656594

I spent the night doing orcas calibration tests and I'm fairly certain I have it calibrated. I think its more on the bond side of things, for the glock and czar print I used the standard .2 layer height profile for bambu with my flow ratio calibrated (with only infill and infill pattern changed)

Spoiler: bambu shit

Spoiler: orca shit

The print you see in the "Orca shit" was produced with those settings, the settings in orange are the ones I have been actively changing trying to get a good result. If I can get it to look like this I'd be so happy.

 

[GoyimGrinder]

I apologize in advance for the necromancy, but are people still liking the Polymaker PLA Pro/ Fiberon PA6-CF20 for prints? I've been thinking about modifying a Recession Ruger design to fit the FCU from an RXM for a PCC that I can just slot it into whenever I feel like switching things up a bit.

Also I'm a little surprised that nobody seems to be doing that shit already given how the RXM is? Just some shitty looking conversion kits that cost nearly as much as the gun itself. Maybe I'm retarded and not looking where I need to.

 

[Naloxone]

I apologize if someone else has mentioned it, I didn't read the thread.

When using AM for firearms design, people seem to over rely on directly making the final part via the 3d printer, when disposable pattern investment casting exists and allows either an FDM or an SLA printer to be used to make fully metal parts(even ferrous alloys) with a sub $1500 investment and a garage. The process isn't even hazardous to health in a major way, the only real environmental hazard(excluding the heat) is silicia dust on a slightly smaller scale than a pottery studio when casting ferrous or other high melting temp alloys(gypsum breaks down between 1300-1500degF).

 

[Marvin]

I apologize if someone else has mentioned it, I didn't read the thread.

When using AM for firearms design, people seem to over rely on directly making the final part via the 3d printer, when disposable pattern investment casting exists and allows either an FDM or an SLA printer to be used to make fully metal parts(even ferrous alloys) with a sub $1500 investment and a garage. The process isn't even hazardous to health in a major way, the only real environmental hazard(excluding the heat) is silicia dust on a slightly smaller scale than a pottery studio when casting ferrous or other high melting temp alloys(gypsum breaks down between 1300-1500degF).

It might've come up.

But how reliable is hobbyist metal casting for something like this? Like I'd be worried about using that for any pressure bearing components.

And that's the thrust of most 3d printed firearms stuff, I think. The plastic does a lot, but the pressure bearing stuff is punted to less sketchy metal pipes and stuff like that.

 

[Naloxone]

It might've come up.

But how reliable is hobbyist metal casting for something like this? Like I'd be worried about using that for any pressure bearing components.

And that's the thrust of most 3d printed firearms stuff, I think. The plastic does a lot, but the pressure bearing stuff is punted to less sketchy metal pipes and stuff like that.

Simply due to the nature of the macrostructures of a cast part, I wouldn't recommend using cast parts for the barrel ever, and I wouldn't recommend it for the bolt if you are using rifle cartridges(at least without further heat treatment).

Lost-Wax Investment Casting, at least using the tools available on Amazon, would definitely be able to produce the "moderately" high stress components in a design. Amazon sells relatively small induction furnaces which are typically used for jewelry, but are perfectly capable of casting steel if you used the correct crucible in a garage environment. From my own personal experience too, if you mixed the mold media correctly and pour with the correct difference in temperature between the charge and the mold, you can get an exceptionally high quality surface for the casting to the point that the SLA printed pattern is the limiting factor.

While you could use a propane fired furnace ala those used for home forges to prepare the molds and preheat the metal prior to the melt, I would recommend looking for a second hand heat treat furnace or ceramics kiln. They are more common than you would expect, and if you get one of the two you can do heat treatment on the cast part(carburizing, core refinement, case hardening) to make basically anything excluding the barrel in a pistol caliber firearm. There might even be casting alloys which can be strengthened by age hardening, in which case you might be able to get up to crazy stuff.